Why Landlord and Tenants Can Never Be Friends

I know there are people who own lots of rental property and think it is a good way to make a living. I am not one of them. I have one house - an old farmstead my mother left me - and it is nothing but a curse.

People do not take care of places they rent. We install folks into a cleanly-painted, decent-looking place, and then they leave it looking like a trash pit.

Here is the most recent example.

This is what the place looked like before we turned it over.

Paneling and brown cabinets.

Freshly painted walls.

Fireplace with paneling. Nice floors.

Kitchen again.

Fresh paint. Nice floors.
 

And here is what it looks like a few days after my latest tenant vacated the premises:

Unauthorized painting of the paneling, and what the hell did they do the ceiling? And what's that black stuff on the walls? (See that one white ceiling tile? That's one I gave them to replace one that they said needed to be replaced because of a small leak. No one said a word about the whole ceiling being covered with … something. And the floors? Not so nice now.
They are so sticky you can't walk on them.

Unauthorized painting of cabinets. And again, what is that black stuff?

Did they sit around letting off smoke bombs? What?

Every room has black all over the walls.

My personal home hasn't been painted in years and if you took a picture from the wall you wouldn't be able to tell where it had been. WTF?

I certainly can't explain it.

Oh yes, let's just tear away the drywall in the bathroom while we're at it.

No clue what caused this. None at all.

And this, my children, is why landlords and tenants almost always have issues. Because the landlord expects the tenant to not live like a pig and smoke up the place and use incense or whatever went on here.

I couldn't make this much mess in three years if I tried. WTH is wrong with people?

Sunset Over Stone Coal Gap

Nikon P500, Saturday 07/14/2018

Sunday Stealing

Sunday Stealing

1. What excites you right now?

A. The idea of answering the questions. I'm quivering with anticipation.

2. What are you looking forward to?

A. Getting the windows cleaned.

3. What’s the best thing that happened to you this year?

A. I had this sinfully delicious triple chocolate brownie . . .

4. Where did you grow up?

A. Just a little ways from where I am now.

5. What do you do for fun?

A. I play video games.

6. Who is your favorite superhero?

A. It's a tie between Xena: Warrior Princess and Wonder Woman.

7. Is there a charitable cause you support?

A. I support many. Unfortunately it seems all I do is pay for postage so they can send me more requests for money.

8. What’s the most important thing I should know about you?

A. I believe most people are doing the best they can.

9. Tell us of something that relaxes you and always makes you happy.

A. Reading a book.

10. If you could take the train from anywhere to anywhere, where would 'anywhere' be?

A. I'd take the last train to Clarksville if you'll meet me at the station, you must be there by 4:30 'cause I've made the reservation.

11. What will you always pack in your suitcase?

A. Underwear.

12. What will you never pack in  your suitcase?

A. My eyeglasses. I can't see a thing without them so they are always on my face.

 __________

I encourage you to visit other participants in Sunday Stealing posts and leave a comment. Cheers to all us thieves who love memes, however we come by them.  (#240)

Saturday 9: I Love Lucy

Saturday 9: I Love Lucy (1951)

Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.

1) Before today, did you know that the "I Love Lucy" theme had lyrics?

A. Yes. I had viewed that episode before.

2) Since its premiere in 1951, I Love Lucy has never been off the air. Are you a fan?

A. I watch it sometimes if I stumble across it, but I don't make a point of it.

3) On the show, Ricky Riccardo supports his family by performing in a nightclub. Do you know anyone in show business?

A. My father plays in a band. I used to play guitar in a band, but that was a long time ago.

4) Lucy and Ricky's best friends are Fred and Ethel, their landlord and his wife. Are you friendly with your neighbors?

A. Friendly enough. Besides, I'm related to most of them.

5) One of the most popular episodes has Lucy and Ethel working on the conveyor belt at a chocolate factory. When did you last have chocolate?

A. I had the most sinfully delicious triple-chocolate brownie on Monday that I have ever had. I will dream about that brownie for the rest of my life. It was magnificent.

6) Another famous episode has Lucy promoting Vitametavegimin. This tonic is made with vitamins, meat, vegetables -- and 23% alcohol. Do you read the ingredients statement before you take an over-the-counter medication? Or do you trust that it's safe because it's on the store shelf?

A. I read the ingredients on everything. I also check the expiration dates.

7) I Love Lucy was filmed before a live audience. Desi Arnaz (Ricky) always maintained he could identify the chuckle of his mother-in-law, who attended every taping. Do you know anyone who has a distinctive laugh?

A. Several people.

8) The show ended when the Lucille Ball/Desi Arnaz marriage ended. Have you ever had to choose sides when a couple broke up?

A. Yes. Sometimes people simply force that on you, whether you want to choose sides or not.

9) Random question -- You must eat the same dinner, every day, between now and Labor Day. An identical menu, no deviation. What will you be having?

A. Chicken, peas, mashed potatoes, green beans, rice, a whole-grain roll, blueberries, and watermelon.

_____________
I encourage you to visit other participants in Saturday 9 posts and leave a comment. Because there are no rules, it is your choice. Saturday 9 players hate rules. We love memes, however.

Thursday Thirteen #560

Tomorrow is July 13, 2018.

It's also a Friday.

Now this is a Thursday 13, not a Friday 13. I'm not afraid of 13 things on Thursdays.

Friday? That's a different story.

I've had two car wrecks - both on Fridays with the date of the 13th. So I stay home on Friday the 13th.

I have no idea why Friday the 13th is a big deal. I suspect it is a religious thing, probably going back to Judas being the 13th guest at the Last Supper and the crucifixion of Christ on a Friday.

Fear of Friday the 13th is called paraskevidekatriaphobia.

Here are some things that supposedly have happened on Friday the 13th.

1. On Friday, Aug. 13, 2010, a 13-year-old boy was struck by lightning at 13:13 (1:13 p.m.) in Suffolk, England. The boy’s name was not released, according to British publications the Daily Mail and the Mirror. Rex Clarke, a St. John Ambulance team leader, told the Mirror: “Suddenly there was this huge crack of lightening really close to the seafront and really loud thunder. Seconds later we got a call someone had been hit. The boy was breathing and was conscious.” The boy had only a minor burn. Clarke said, “It’s all a bit strange that he was 13, and it happened at 13:13 on Friday 13.”

2. On Jan. 13, 1989 the “Friday the 13th virus” infected hundreds of IBM computers across the UK. It was programmed to delete files on Friday the 13th.

3. On November 13, 1970, the Bhola cyclone killed an estimated 500,000 people in Chittagong and the surrounding area. The 1970 Friday the 13th cyclone is described by the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium as “the deadliest tropical cyclone ever recorded, and one of the deadliest natural disasters in modern times.”

4. On Friday, Oct. 13, 1972, a Fairchild airplane carrying a rugby team from Montevideo to Chile disappeared over the Andes. It was later immortalized in the film Alive. Sixteen of the 45 passengers by eating the passengers who had died—a gruesome tale that captured the attention of the world. On that same day, another plane crash killed 160 people. An Aeroflot Il62 airliner flying to Paris via Leningrad crashed near the Sheremetyevo airport, killing all aboard, UPI reported at that time.

5. On December 13, 1995, Joshua Dudley was touring an exhibition of Faberge eggs at the Virginia Museum of Fine Art when he received a phone call telling him he had inherited a $3m estate from a deceased uncle. He began a major celebration that resulted in $4m in damages to the museum.

6. On Friday, October 13, 1972, Dana Hamilton of Rye, New York sold her luxurious hair to a local wigmaker so she could buy her husband a gold chain for his beloved pocket watch. That same evening, she returned home to discover that her husband had sold his watch to buy a pearl necklace for his secretary, with whom he was having an affair. (Sounds like a bad version of an O'Henry story, doesn't it?)

7.  Tawny Wetzel, a researcher investigating the correlation between Friday the 13th and emergency room visits, was attacked and killed by hornets on Friday, January 13, 1977.

8. While preparing a lecture on fatalism and external locus of control for his students on Friday, February 13, 1993, psychology professor Claiborn Phillips was struck by lightning a record 13 times in row. (Oh, the irony.)

9. On Friday, July 13, 1951, the state of Kansas had over 25 inches of rain. The cities of Manhattan, Lawrence, and Topeka were most affected, and over two million acres of land were damaged by the flood. At its highest, the flooding exceeded previous records by four to nine feet.

10. On Friday, October 13, 1989, the stock market fell 7 percent. Known as Black Friday, the market dropped after the buyout of United Airlines fell through. A lot of people lost a lot of money.

11. According to National Geographic, a  Swedish flight disappeared while flying over the Baltic Sea on June 13, 1952. For 40 years, the Swedish government stuck by the story that the plane was merely performing training exercises. However, National Geographic reported that in the '90s someone leaked that the crewmembers were actually spying on the Soviet Union for NATO — even though Sweden was officially neutral during the Cold War. Russia responded with its own confession. A Russian pilot told a Swedish diplomat that he had shot the plane down.

12. From October 12 to October 13, 2006, western New York was hit with two feet of snow. Over 300,000 people were left without power, thousands of trees were damaged, and the Governor of New York declared a State of Emergency for the Buffalo region.
 
13. Here's a future prediction: according to Geek.com, an asteroid will come within 22,000 miles of the Earth on April 13, 2029. The closeness of the asteroid could cause damage to the Earth's surface, and there's a one-in-100,000 chance it could collide with us.

______________

Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while and this is my 560th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday. Or so sayth the Blogger counter, anyway.

Tell Me Every Story Told

A long time ago, a friend who is no longer with us told me she was not going to work on writing novels anymore.

The world has enough people trying to write and publishing things. There are already too many books, she said.

My total astonishment at her words was profound. She went on to blast our mutual alma mater as a place that actually deters writing even though it is a college that has Pulitzer Prize winning authors and national poet laurates among its alumnae. The teaching, she maintained, was so geared toward writing The Great American Novel of Literature that it overlooked and discounted multiple genres and forms of writing.

She never published a novel, though she did publish a history book. Like me, she wrote for newspapers. She also had five novels tucked away in a drawer when she passed away, and who knows what else.

I did have a novel tucked away in a drawer, but I threw it out some time ago. I have another stashed in a file cabinet someplace that I never finished. My essay for my masters degree is probably the longest piece of decent writing that I have.

Truth is, I never wanted to write The Great American Novel. I wanted to be a ghost writer and write Nancy Drew books. I wanted to be Janet Evanovich and write Stephanie Plum novels. I wanted to be Victoria Holt and write gothic romances.

I didn't want to write Catcher in the Rye or Jane Eyre. I read those books and enjoyed them, but I couldn't see myself writing them.

My friend was correct about one thing - the college I graduated from gave short shrift to anything not deemed "literature." Aspirations for other forms of writing were ignored.

I don't know if it is still that way. When I went after my masters degree, it wasn't quite as "literary" but that sense of it was still there. It helped that one of my professors was a genre writer, I think. She didn't look at genre quite like other teachers.

Story comes in many forms. Oral stories are great - my father and brother are both great orators. They can bullshit with the best of them and both are salesmen. I am not a good oral story teller, but I do all right with words on paper. I operate best there.

Everyone has a story, but every story is the same. Right? Wrong? I think not, because even in a family, no one sees a situation or event in the same way. What may be funny to one person might horrify another.

That's the thing about humanity and the human story. Differences abound everywhere, even among twins, triplets, or quadruplets. We have a basic underpinning - we're born, we live, we die. It's the middle part that is so fascinating (although some births are rather fascinating stories, in and of themselves). That "live" part.

Living is so different for everyone. Hard for most, easy for a few. Some laugh their way through it, some cry. Some see joy everywhere while others see nothing but sorrow. Some see a mix of everything.

And who's to say who is right or wrong about any of it? Who has the right to tell someone else that what they see with their own eyes, and feel with their own heart, is good, bad, right or wrong? Society has a set of morals that we use to determine certain things in life - it's bad, for example, to murder someone. That feeling needs to be set aside and not acted upon, if you're feeling murderous toward someone. That goes for any other emotion that causes someone else harm or angst. Societal mores have said we don't do those things, and we are raised to know this. Well, most of us are, anyway. If we didn't know this, society would break down and not function.

My friend did not really stop writing. Being a writer means you never stop thinking like a writer, even if you aren't writing. Being a writer is a different way of seeing the world, a way of looking at details, of searching for the overlay of story arc in an event. A search for the protagonist and antagonist in every outing. Is that the good person? The bad person? Who is right or wrong? Who is going against the dictated social mores?

Sometimes I think that every story has been told. Maybe all we're all doing is rewriting Shakespeare in invisible ways, or telling stories from the Bible in new ways, thousands of times over. Maybe we're telling stories with meaning, or maybe our stories mean nothing at all.

Supposedly there are only seven basic plots: overcoming the monster; rags to riches; the quest; voyage and return; comedy; tragedy; rebirth. I always read them as conflicts of man against self, man against man, man against nature, or man against other/society.

However you define it, even if there are only seven plots, there are endless stories, as many stories as there people. Maybe as many stories as there are stars in the sky.

And here I am writing blog posts, or essays. It counts. It's a story about stories. Somewhere in what I have written this morning, is a story.

A Diamond Road

At first, we came here for the soil. A dirt road was good enough.

Then we went west for the gold.

For a while we settled for plastic and asphalt as the wheels of industry turned.

And now?

Now we search for diamond roads. Roads littered with sparkles and jewels, roads that lead only to riches. And not the riches of heaven, either. We search for the spoils of the day. Big cars. Big homes. Nice clothes. Expensive shoes. A yacht, maybe.

Living the good life, walking that diamond road.

The thing about diamonds is they are hard and nearly impenetrable. You can't eat them. You can carve them into pretty things, or use them as tools to cut things, but they're rather useless in the day-to-day world.

Walking a diamond road is about like walking a gravel road. Just shinier.

In Frank Baum's book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the road is a yellow brick road. The book was written in 1900, so the gold boom in California was still fresh on everyone's mind, I imagine. A yellow brick road would be like that diamond road of today.

Baum's book has lots of lessons. Dorothy is the immigrant to Oz, which one could consider to be the United States. She follows the path and has to traverse lots of dangers to get to the Emerald City (aka the United States). She is then spit-polished and sent back out into danger, to emerge victorious in her return to Oz. In the end, though, she discovers Oz is an illusion. (Don't mind the man behind the curtain.)

Is the "American Dream" an illusion? I think it is for a lot of people.

Robert Frost took the "road less traveled." In an Eagles song, a couple goes rushing down a highway and then are dying to get off as they live "life in the fast lane."

It seems to me today most people want that diamond road. They're not searching for the dirt road, or the soil path, or even a yellow brick road. They want on that fast lane and they want all the riches they can grab.

While riches are not like pie - there really is enough for everyone, if the thing is only carved properly - the spoils seem to be spun out in strange fashion in this country. The diamond road is pranced upon by a small few, while the rest believe they are walking on it but they're really on a dirt road and the rocks beneath their feet aren't diamonds. Just rocks.

Most people ultimately travel many roads as they head toward their ultimate destination - which is, for every single one of us - death. I have often wandered off the road to see what is across the meadow or on the other side of the pond. It leads to an interesting and creative life, these adventures, but it doesn't bring diamonds.

At some point I decided I really didn't want diamonds. I'm not sure I even want a road. I think maybe I'd just like a little path, one not trod by many, with lots of distractions along the way.
 

Sunday Stealing

Sunday Stealing

1. Where were you 3 hours ago?

A. Right here in front of the computer, playing Skyrim.

2. Have you ever eaten a crayon?

A. Not that I recall.

3. Is there anything pink within 10 feet of you?

A. Yes. I have some empty picture frames that are pink that I need to print photos to for so I can place them in the bathroom.

4. When is the last time you went to the mall?

A. It has been so long I do not remember. I'm not much of a shopper.

5. Are you wearing socks right now?

A. I am.

6. When was the last time you drove out of town?

A. About a month ago.

7. Have you been to the movies in the last 5 days?

A. No.

8. What was the last thing you had to drink?

A. Water.

9. What are you wearing right now?

A. Sweats and a T-shirt.

10. Do you wash your car or let the car wash do it?

A. I let the husband do it for me.

11. Last food that you ate?

A. An egg sandwich.

12. Where were you last week at this time?

A. Same bat time, same bat channel.

13. Have you bought any clothing items in the last week?

A. No.

14. When is the last time you ran?

A. Ha. That is the most hilarious question I have ever thought of answering.

15. What's the last sporting event you watched?

A. A NASCAR race, I guess. I don't watch sports at all but my husband watches the car races.

__________

I encourage you to visit other participants in Sunday Stealing posts and leave a comment. Cheers to all us thieves who love memes, however we come by them.

Saturday 9: Chains

Saturday 9: Chains (1962)

Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.

1) The song is about a woman who is in love with her boyfriend, but still attracted to someone else. Do you believe a woman can be in love with more than one person at a time?

A. Yes.

2) What about the male of the species? Do you believe a man can be in love with more than one person at a time?

A. Yes.

3) These lyrics were by Gerry Goffin and the music by Carole King. Carole was a favorite guest of David Letterman's. When she appeared on his show, he often commented on how impressed he was by her firm handshake. She credited her memorable grip to time spent milking goats on her Idaho farm. Have you poured goat milk on your cereal? Eaten goat milk yogurt or cheese?

A. Yes.

4) When it first came out, "Chains" was a favorite of 18-year-old George Harrison. It was at his recommendation that the Beatles added it to their early stage shows and even recorded it on their first album. When you were in high school, what was one of your favorite songs?

A. I Will Survive by Gloria Gaynor

5) In 1962, when this song was released, epic movies were popular on the big screen. The Longest Day was three hours long, and Lawrence of Arabia ran more than three hours and a half hours. Today's most popular movies are nowhere near that long. Do you think the average American has a shorter attention span today than he did in 1962?

A. Yes.

6) In 1962, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy went on a two-week goodwill tour of India and Pakistan. She received a ceremonial "welcome necklace" in India. Made without jewels or precious metals -- just beads, sequins and paper -- it was valued by the First Lady for its delicate appearance and craftsmanship, and today it's on display at the John F. Kennedy Library. Tell us about a piece of jewelry that means a great deal to you, and why.

A. My wedding band and engagement ring mean the most to me of any of my jewelry, because my husband gave them to me.

7) In Pakistan, Mrs. Kennedy made headlines by riding a camel. Have you ever ridden a horse, donkey, camel or elephant?

A. I've ridden a horse and a donkey.

8) Also in 1962, the New York Newspaper Guild went on strike, so the nation's largest city went 114 days without a single daily paper. In 2018, how do you get your news?

A. I read the newspaper, watch TV, read various online sources.

9) Random question -- Complete this sentence: Before I go to sleep, I always ___________________________.

A. Go to the bathroom to pee.

_____________
I encourage you to visit other participants in Saturday 9 posts and leave a comment. Because there are no rules, it is your choice. Saturday 9 players hate rules. We love memes, however.  (#240)

Thursday Thirteen

Types of war:

1. Civil War

2. War of Independence

3. Cyberwar

4. Ethnic war

5. Cold war

6. Guerilla war

7. Undeclared war

8. Perpetual war

9. War of Succession

10. Trade war

12. Preemptive war

13. World war


What is really sad is I could pick and choose among a long list of different types of war. Humans apparently fight over everything.

There isn't a list (that I could find, anyway) for types of peace. There are long explanations about "peace" but we don't call things "economic peace" or "trade peace." We do talk about World Peace (like that's ever going to happen). Apparently peace is the absence of war.

I think that says a lot.

 ______________

Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while and this is my 559th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday. Or so sayth the Blogger counter, anyway.

Happy July 4!

 

The fireworks are pretty, but the real reason for the day is to celebrate the birth of this nation as a new experiment in government, a democratic republic with checks and balances that are supposed to ensure the rights of the people and guarantee everyone the opportunity to live a happy and productive life.

Let's not roll back the clock to a time best forgotten but instead look ahead to a brighter tomorrow, when we are all standing tall, stronger together.

Coloring Again

This is a picture from my Lord of the Rings coloring book. I finished it yesterday.



This is from The Fellowship of the Ring. Frodo, Merry, Sam, and Pippin had just found some mushrooms. Frodo yells, "Get off the road!" and they hide underneath this tree while a Black Rider goes by on his search for the One Ring.

A detail of the hobbits as they hide.

The Black Rider.

This was actually difficult because of all the greenery/moss/brown, etc.. The artist did a good drawing of the scene, but honestly, things don't end and the lines are just crisscrosses and they are horrible to color in.

I think this was the scene from the movie:

As you can see, it's a very dark scene. How do you think I did with the coloring?

That Time I Had a Cat

I do not have indoor pets. When I was young we had indoor dogs sometimes (mostly poodles), and I stayed sick and we never equated it with the dog, but it was the dog.

We never had cats, though. My father did not like cats.

I am not especially fond of them, mostly because I haven't been around them and because they make me sneeze. They also seem to know I don't want them near me - if I enter a house with a cat it makes a beeline for me, wanting to purr all over me and get hair on my pants.

I don't dislike cats, really, but I don't pick them up and pet them, either.

But for a little while, I had a cat. Or the cat had me.

We had been married around three months and were living in a cold four-room house when the little kitty showed up at our doorstep. My husband said, "Don't feed it," and of course I did. How could I not? I don't recall what I named her, but she was white with black on her.

My memories of her are few. Once, she helped my husband kill a snake he was trying to pull out from beneath the house we were renting. She bit the snake in the back. The snake immediately relaxed so my husband was able to pull the snake on out of its hole.

The other memory of her is that she had kittens. This surprised me because I didn't think she was old enough to have kittens, but there they were all the same. Unfortunately, she had them in the cellar way up under the house where I couldn't reach them. I heard them, though, the morning they were born, just before I left for work.

I assumed all would be well, but apparently this little mother had no milk, or else was too young to know how to nurse them. She tried to feed them by killing a bird and dragging it to the little mewling babies (at least, I know they were mewling there for a time because I heard them), but of course they couldn't eat a bird. Over the course of a day, the babies were born and they died and I was at work and didn't figure it all out until I came home and went to check on them.

I cried when I saw the dead bird and the little dead kittens.

My husband, of course, was at the fire station for the evening, so I called my brother and asked him to come by and help me with the dead animals under my house.

I am not sure what happened to the cat. We moved and we took the cat with us, but she ran off, never to be seen again.

And that's my only experience with cats.

Sunday Stealing

Sunday Stealing

1. Do you like parades?

A. I'm afraid my work as a news reporter has rather soured me on parades. I attended loads of them, taking pictures for the newspaper. I really don't care if I ever go to another.

2. Rate the following parade attractions in order of affection (I'll just move these around to the order of affection):
*. fire trucks
*. marching bands
*. floats
*. anything that gives away candy
*. antique cars/tractors
*. horses
*. politicians ride in cars

3. Have you ever been in a parade?

A. I used to be in the marching band in high school. We went to the parades. In July we sweltered, at Christmas we froze.

4. Do you bring lawn chairs to parades?

A. I was too busy working to sit.

5. Does it bother you to have to park a long way from the parade, and then walk back to the car afterwards?

A. Yes.

6. Do you wave at people you know?

A. Yes.

7. At people you don't know?

A. I used to wave and talk to everybody, whether I knew them or not. Press pass, you know.

8. Do you take pets -dogs particularly - to parades?

A. No. Dogs don't belong everywhere and I know everyone loves their little snookums, but I wish the animals would stay at home. I'm allergic to them and I'm also a little afraid of the larger ones. I can't be the only person who feels that way.

9. Have you ever been to a big parade in person (Rose Bowl, Macy's, etc)?

A. No.

10. Do you attend more warm weather or cold weather parades?

A. I attended both, but I think as the younger news reporter I often ended up with the cold and rainy ones more so than others.

__________

I encourage you to visit other participants in Sunday Stealing posts and leave a comment. Cheers to all us thieves who love memes, however we come by them.

Saturday 9: Back in the USA

SATURDAY 9: BACK IN THE USA (1978)

Unfamiliar with this week's song? Hear it here.

1) This song lists seven cities -- New York, Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago, Chattanooga, Baton Rouge and St. Louis -- that Linda just loves. How many have you visited?

A. I have been to three of them, I think.

2) The lyrics refer to hamburgers sizzling on the grill. What toppings do you believe make a perfect burger?

A. Cheese, mayonnaise, catsup, and a pickle.

3) The original recording of this song by Chuck Berry has always been one of Linda Ronstadt's favorites, one she used to enjoy singing along with in the car. What's the most recent song you sang?

A. I played Styx's Come Sail Away on the guitar a little while ago.

4) Linda sang The National Anthem at Game 3 of the 1977 World Series. The New York Yankees won both that game and the series. How is your baseball team doing this season?

A. I don't watch baseball.

Since this is our last Saturday 9 before Independence Day, let's ask some questions about the holiday.

5) During the Revolutionary War, General Washington celebrated the 4th of July by giving his troops a double ration of rum. Will you imbibe any spirits on Independence Day?

A. No. I don't drink.

6) The first man to sign the Declaration of Independence, John Hancock, said he wrote his name so large King George could see it, even without his glasses. Do you require glasses for reading?

A. I require glasses for seeing.

7) Since July 4 is a federal holiday, banks are closed and there's no mail delivery. Thanks to email and ATMs, Sam finds going without those services isn't a hardship. What about you? Will you find it inconvenient that banks and the USPS are closed on July 4?

A. No.

8) The first 4th of July parade each year is held at 12:01 AM in Gatlinberg, TN. Will you attend a parade or fireworks to celebrate the 4th?

A. We might see fireworks in town. We haven't made plans. My husband will be in between duty cycles and it rather depends on whether or not he is up all night Tuesday night.

9) More and more Americans celebrate our nation's holiday by eating foods from Italy and Germany. For the July 4, 2016 holiday, more than $50 million was spent on Italian sausage and bratwurst. What's on your 4th of July menu?

A. I don't have a July 4 menu. But I can guarantee you I won't be eating sausage or bratwurst. Talk about late night heartburn.

_____________
I encourage you to visit other participants in Saturday 9 posts and leave a comment. Because there are no rules, it is your choice. Saturday 9 players hate rules. We love memes, however.